The growling of my stomach awoke me the next day. I immediately opened up my eyes and everything that happened last night came back to me. The reason being was that my mouth still felt like it was burning. I tried cooling my mouth off again, but that didn't help any.

I looked over to the direction I threw the berry last night after biting it and saw it lying several feet away. I looked at it as something came back to memory. It was when I was having pizza with Priss. The word Tomato Berry came into mind.

"It's not only hot, but spicy as well,"

were the words that played.

"So that's a Tomato Berry," I thought. "Priss was right about it being spicy. She forgot to mention that it burns your mouth as well."

I got up, shaking as much dirt off me as possible. My night wasn't very comfortable. It felt like sleeping on twigs. My back ached in pain a bit as I stretched. I winced at the pain as my stomach growled again. My life sure wasn't going great. Then again, since when has it ever?

I got a move on again, already wasting most of the morning getting up. Unfortunately, my pace was slow. I sighed as I walked on, watching other pokemon pass by whether they were playing, walking, or even eating.

I smiled as memories of my time with my friends came back to me. Next to everyone else I called my friends, Para, Bee, and Tai were the three I was somewhat close to.

--

I was leaning up against the tree, listening to the trio squabbling over stuff like Bee training his needles or Tai's foolish behavior of playing around too much. I, like always, remained silent and just listened in. That was one good thing I could do. Listen. I never had much to say because mainly there was nothing to say at all. My mind always had nothing to talk about unless it just had an idea pop in there. And that rarely ever happens.

"What do you think, Quil?" Bee asked suddenly.

"About what?" I asked.

"Weren't you listening?" Para asked.

"Uh, I guess I shut my ears off every now and then," I said. "Sorry. So what do I think about what?"

"About what would happen if someone you know just simply disappeared one day into thin air?" Tai asked.

"What you mean like getting caught by a human?" I asked.

"No," Tai said, shaking his head. "I mean just going for a walk and suddenly that someone just simply vanished the next time you turned around. You hear no scream, no yelling of fright, no nothing. They're just gone, like they never existed."

"Knock it off, Tai," Bee said annoyed. "You're scaring the children." By "children" he meant Para and I.

"Aw come on," Tai said. "You have to admit it would be an adventure to find out where they disappeared off to."

Bee only rolled his eyes while Para cringed. I felt myself shaking a bit in fright.

"Just out of curiosity, how did we end up on this subject?" Bee asked.

"I don't know," Tai replied. "One conversation leads to another and so on and so on and eventually the conversation just leads somewhere."

"Sometimes you make no sense at all," Bee said.

"Thank you," Tai replied cheerfully. "But I guess you have to be like me to understand that there's no sense at all of how I think."

"Huh?" I asked.

Tai only laughed while Bee shook his head.

"Hey guys," I said suddenly. "Where's Para?"

During our small conversation, we had failed to notice that Para had disappeared.

"You don't think she disappeared, do you?" Tai asked, looking excited.

"I don't believe in such things," Bee said.

"Just you wait," Tai said in a spooky voice. "You could be next."

"Please knock it off," Bee said, becoming a bit irritated.

"Depends on what you want me to knock off," Tai said. "Your head? You needles? Or how about your legs?"

Bee growled while I stifled a chuckle. But it wasn't because of Tai. It was the thing behind him which caught him way off guard. Something Tai took no notice of until it practically jumped on him.

"BOO!" Para yelled suddenly from behind Tai.

Tai's eyes went wide with fear and he shot up into the air like a rocket. I couldn't hold it in and fell on the ground, laughing. Para laughed along with me. I even heard Bee trying to laugh as well, but only got a few snickers out of him.

Tai crashed to the ground, a little dazed. "Wh-What happened?" he asked.

"I disappeared and reappeared," Para replied with a wide smile.

"That's one way of putting it," Bee said.

"I heard you snickering," I said to Bee.

"I do not snicker," Bee said, turning his head away.

"Then what was that huffing noise I heard?" I asked.

"I was annoyed," Bee replied.

"Aw come on," Para said. "Everyone has to laugh at something. Even you have to admit that was funny. He didn't even see it coming."

Bee rolled his eyes again. That really irritated me when he did that. It made me think that he was a stuck up snob.

--

I collapsed as the memories ceased. I was way too exhausted to continue moving. I huffed and sighed as my eyes tried drooping close again.

"Well this sucks," I thought. "At this rate I'll never get to Violet-" My thoughts were suddenly cut off as I lost all consciousness.

--

I woke up later to find the area already starting to get dark again.

"Aw man," I said out loud. "Don't tell me I wasted the whole day sleeping?"

I groaned in anger as I got up. I felt well rested, but my stomach was starving. Not to mention my muscles were sore. It felt like I was squashed by a Snorlax. That reminded me of the time a Snorlax traveled through our forest and ended up sleeping in the most peculiar spot. Namely right in front of my home.

It was Flare's biggest challenge ever. The Snorlax never woke up once, not even when Flare screamed right in his ear. Maria wasn't born yet when this event happened. It was three whole weeks until the Snorlax woke up.

My parents were both scared that he would attack them for the mysterious burns on him from Flare. But the strange thing was, there were no burns on him when he left. He looked the same the day he walked in.

Of course, Flare walked about the clearing weeks afterwards confused how a pokemon like Snorlax couldn't feel a thing and wake up with no burn marks on him. It sure was a riot for me to see Flare like that.

I stopped suddenly as my nose detected something. It wasn't a pleasant something either. The smell traveled down into my lungs and immediately I began having trouble breathing.

Pokemon were running past me, heading back the other way. I couldn't see too many of them because of the dark, but I did have a collision with one. I wasn't even paying attention as the pokemon ran into me. It just added more pain.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"Run for your life!" the pokemon said as he began running. "It's a forest fire!"